Showing posts with label N-word. Show all posts
Showing posts with label N-word. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Juneteenth thoughts


























Hey Joe








The Plot Against AmericaThe Plot Against America by Philip Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a very interesting piece of alternate historical fiction. Philip Roth asks the question - what if FDR had been defeated in his presidential run for a third term by the charismatic, anti-Semitic Charles Lindbergh whose main campaign promise was to keep the US out of World War II while having a darker motive for acquiring great power? Roth tells his story in a macro way as well as going micro and showing the impact of Lindbergh's presidency through the eyes of a boy in a Jewish family living in Newark, NJ. I decided to read this book upon learning that HBO is doing a movie adaptation of it, with portions being filmed in my neighborhood. I took the opportunity to visit the site of filming when it was taking place a few blocks from my house. It was a cool experience made cooler by getting to hang out with a few of the extras. I've long been a Philip Roth fan, and while this novel didn't impress me quite as much as the masterful American Pastoral or crack me up like the hilarious Portnoy's Complaint, it was still a great read. Parallels between the 1940's of Roth's imagination and our current political climate are striking. Simply switch the idea of a man who ascends to the presidency aided by a foreign government (Germany) with the idea of a man ascending to the presidency aided by a foreign government (Russia). Switch a celebrity with no previous political experience having an improbable, meteoric rise to the White House with a celebrity with no previous political experience having an improbable, meteoric rise to the White House. Switch people being thrown into hellish concentration camps because they're Jewish with people being thrown into hellish detention centers because they crossed a border in hope for a better way of life. One is hypothetical fiction, the other is the life we're living. The deeper into the book you get, the more you marvel at how Roth seemed to be stealing from a reality that hadn't happened yet by creating one that never happened. As a wise man once said, truth is stranger than fiction.

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From MATTERS OF CONVENIENCE

   






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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

We Will Just Have To Agree To Disagree



Social media has taught me that plenty of people hold strong opinions that I consider to be quite bone headed, and the reverse is equally valid.  Below is a Top Ten Eleven Twelve list of issues where others are in disagreement with how I see the world.  That said, I respect your opinions, all the more so if we engage in debate and you handle your end in a respectful manner.  I try my best to be mature when taking my stances and I forgive you for being wrong.   
* N word usage: I'm not in favor of it being said by anybody. It's firmly entrenched in our culture as a hateful insult and I do not believe the misguided attempt to claim the word for ourselves (primarily by ending it with "a" rather than "er") has been successful in removing its sting.  Otherwise nobody would get upset when a non-black person said it.  It can't be denied that the N-word has successfully ingrained itself into black culture though.  African Americans, particularly under a certain age or under a certain degree of educational achievement, will continue to use it.  They won't mean any harm.  It's like a cigarette habit, mostly self inflicted damage with some second hand smoke level injury.  I believe that to be respected by others it is important to show you respect yourself.  Referring to yourself by a derogatory term is not what Queen Aretha was referring to as R-E-S-P-E-C-T.


* Feminism needs to be broken down into race categories?: My Twitter mentions blew up the other day on account of this question.  I carelessly RT'd someone who said something that seemed sensible to me and BOOM went the dynamite. Look, I get that people from different cultures have different struggles.  A hardship that applies to a black woman's day-to-day may not impact a White or Asian or Latina woman in the same way, and vice versa.  But certainly there are a sufficient number of issues that are woman based, regardless of race/skin tone/religion, for Feminism to serve as an umbrella cause covering women in general. To say that feminism is strictly for white women seems very short sighted to me, though I have no doubt there are white feminists who give little thought to certain matters that only tend to affect a woman of color.  Even so, women of all backgrounds have many shared hardships.  They deal equally with sexual harassment in the workplace; catcalling on the street; lower pay for equal work; less representation in top corporate positions, needing access to birth control; considering abortion to be a personal choice over one's own body rather than a decision handed down by politicians; breastfeeding shaming; slut shaming; body image shaming; possibly having to choose between motherhood and career in inflexible workplaces; etc. etc.  So with all of this being shared, I don't believe the differences that exist are enough to disqualify feminism from catering to womankind overall.  There is more than sufficient common ground. And there is strength in numbers.  Why shrink the volume of your collective voice?  One doesn't even need to be a woman to be a feminist.  If you're a man who happens to have a mother/sister/daughter/girlfriend/wife/ or friends of opposite sex then you should consider being a feminist too, regardless of your race. I do wholeheartedly agree with Kimberlé Crenshaw that various forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other, so if you happen to be a member of two or more marginalized groups, multiple social justice movements in concert rather than a single one may need to be applied. In other words, you can be impacted on account of being a woman, or due to being Black, or because as a Black woman you are both. Lastly, agreeing with someone who has a similar view of feminism (or anything else for that matter) is not "caping" for them, not protecting them from big, bad bullies.  It's just agreeing with them.


* Hashtivism / Semantics / Which Lives Matter?: I believe that activism by hashtag has led to oversimplification of what it means to be supportive of a cause.  Inclusiveness seems to have become a vulgar concept.  Consider what I just said about feminism.  Yes it's true that certain issues pertain to people of one race more than another, but that doesn't mean we can't still be in the fight together.  Yes, there are issues being brought up about mistreated black lives that have caused people to proclaim that "Black Lives Matter".  I repeat, #BlackLivesMatter, for of course they do.  Do all of the other racial categories of lives matter as well?  Of course they do.  Granted, when we're specifically talking about black lives we should try to stay on topic.  We can talk about the struggles of Native Americans and Eskimos some other time. It's not as if we insist that the NRA talk about knives or that anti-smoking people discuss the perils of trans fat in fast food. A special interest group is allowed to focus on a particular topic and the specific people affected. That's fair, right?  But if someone does happen to say ALL rather than black, there is no need to assume that the speaker is saying black lives DO NOT matter.  Saying ALL does not mean that issues of particular importance to African Americans are being ignored.  It simply means that all people are created equal, we all have the same inalienable rights, so in situations where a particular group is getting the shaft, that's a problem in need of remedy.  When asked about a specific racial injustice if somebody chooses to wave it off as unimportant, then we can conclude that their definition of ALL is more limited than it should be.


* Police: We need significant revamping of the screening/training/sanity maintaining of police officers in departments throughout the USA. I do not believe all cops by nature are evil.  I do not believe all white cops are racist. I do believe that cops who walk a beat have stress inducing jobs that can sometimes lead to hair trigger overreaction. There are plenty of cops who need to be weeded out as they are unfit for the duty of protecting and serving everybody equally.  There are plenty of officers who act decently 99 days out of 100 who may screw up royally under pressure on the exception day.  Hopefully the result won't be the needless loss of a life.  We can't allow the police to police themselves for they have shown inclination to protect their own over making sure that justice is served.  Bad apples must be tossed out before they spoil the bunch.  But not every cop is a bad one, and not every situation that arises and makes the news is the result of a cop gone wild.  Sometimes the one being arrested is the bad guy as it is supposed to be.  We need cops to do their job properly, and more often than not, that's what they do.  The success stories don't get much press, only the incidents where something goes horribly wrong.


* Cultural appropriation: People copy aspects of ethnic cultures other than the one they were born into from time to time.  This is not a federal crime, nor is every single example equivalent to black face.  Cultural borrowing, typically temporary, can go in any direction.  It isn't a one way street of whites ripping everybody else off.  Every couple months it seems a new celebrity is being accused of underhanded cultural appropriation. Miley Cyrus was the focus of ire for awhile.  Iggy Azalea is a white woman from Australia who somehow sounds like a black woman from Georgia when she raps.  This is certainly peculiar and clearly a calculated decision on her part to capitalize on a certain sound that isn't native to her.  But it doesn't mean she is the enemy of blacks, including the black guy she agreed to marry.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  So if Kylie Jenner wears her hair in cornrows for a day or two it's not like she's leading a lynch mob, she's just a girl trying on a different look for size.  If you agree with me here but draw the line at Rachel Dolezal, I can't say that I blame you.  Rachel went several enormous steps too far by making a conscious effort to pass for black and somehow managing to take her masquerade all the way to heading a chapter of the NAACP.  Had she stopped short of the NAACP I probably would have just shrugged, but apparently Rachel is not the sort of person who does anything halfway.  Yet I'm not pissed off at her and I don't feel she did much harm to anyone other than herself once secrets were revealed.  We got some good laughs at her expense.  We should now be able to move on.


* Interracial relationships: They happen. In every variety of way. With celebrities and with everybody else.  It's not a trend and isn't going anywhere.  So get over it. Being involved with somebody of a different race is not proof of self loathing.  One does not abandon what they were born by being involved with someone of another race.  Just as people can walk and chew gun at the same time, they can be themselves while loving another.  If you're not in the relationship it's none of your business.  If I'm not in it, it's none of mine.



* Privilege: Yep, white people in the USA have it.  Especially the males.  Most especially those who aren't broke.  This isn't the only kind of privilege of course.  Things are set up more for the convenience of right handed people than lefties.  Able bodied people are in a better situation than handicapped.  Tall and skinny usually works out better for a person than short and tubby.  Being considered attractive comes with perks that being considered NOT does not.  Whichever of these and other privileges you may be in possession of, chances are that you didn't have much choice in the matter.  As for categories where you got the short end of the stick, c'est la vie.  Deal with whatever it is you need to deal with and go be great.  Nothing is stopping you except maybe for you.  Privilege is just there chilling, not caring how much of it you ended up with.  So stop whining about it 24/7.  Didn't you know that privilege is blind and deaf to your protestations?


* Stop declaring every belief by a black person that you disagree with to be an example of hotep/Uncle Tom'ing: People curse because they lack the vocabulary to make an intelligent argument.  The same can be said for referring to someone by an insulting term for the sin of having a different opinion than you.  This is done to an exhausting degree in the black community.  Within any other ethnicity, if one person has liberal left leaning beliefs and the other has conservative right wing beliefs, they'll disagree on a lot of issues.  They'll vote for candidates in different political parties.  When arguing over a particularly heated topic they may not like each other very much, at least temporarily.  But typically neither of them will call the other anything like an Uncle Tom or a hotep, which are terms that mean a black person is acting in a traitorous manner against his own race (see interracial relationships).  Feeling strongly one way or the other about a matter has nothing to do with racial identity for most people.  But if a black guy happens to feel that black-on-black crime is as much of a problem as police brutality, he is called an Uncle Tom.  Perhaps we'll eventually modernize that low blow to Uncle Don in honor of Don Lemon. Don receives as much name calling / abusive meme treatment as anyone these days.  Disagreement is inevitable and won't always be kept civil.  But it's possible to not agree with much of what someone such as Clarence Thomas stands for, to dislike him vehemently, yet still not pull a card having anything to do with race when expressing distaste.  Consider him to be a jerk. State that you think he's dead wrong. Leave it at that.  As Chris Rock once said, I have some things I'm liberal about and some things I'm conservative about.  Most grown-ups feel similarly, even if in their younger days it tended to be all one or the other. It's not a matter of jumping back and forth between being conscious and being a so called hotep.  It's simply a matter of being a complex human being who judges situations on a case by case basis.


* Black Twitter: It's not actually a real thing:  Neither is Black facebook, black instagram, etc.  There was (maybe still is) a Black Planet, I'll grant you that.  Social media is one for all and all for one.  There are plenty of black people on Twitter.  Among them I don't believe there is 100% consensus on anything.  The LA Times has put a writer on the case, think pieces are written on a monthly basis, books are in the works, all about Black Twitter.  One may as well write about Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, visiting space aliens, and mermaids.  They all make for fascinating stories but nothing can be proven so it must be considered fiction.  I'm black. I have a Twitter account.  Does that make me a member of Black Twitter?  Not necessarily, as apparently not every black person tweeting is in the club.  Also, I've read you can be in Black Twitter without even being black.  I wonder if Rachel Dolezal was in Black Twitter before being outed.  Do I have to hold certain beliefs to be in Black Twitter, 100% compliance to whatever the rules of engagement are?  If so, where are the guidelines?  Hidden like stations of the Underground Railroad?  I doubt it.  Have I forever disqualified myself from Black Twitter membership by writing this blog post? Surely it goes against several core BT principles?  Or maybe it doesn't.  I have no idea because I have no idea what Black Twitter is exactly, no clue what it represents, and neither does nobody else no matter how much they've written about it and swear they know the deal.  Black Twitter is the ghost in the attic, the fairy in your garden, the angel on your shoulder.  Nobody can get a picture of it but they swear it's real.  It's not. Until someone registers BlackTwitter.com - it's nothing more than a phrase that people use to pigeonhole. One more completely unnecessary label.


* Racial identity is a definitive deal: This is a tough one deserving of a post unto itself rather. In fact, I may have made the attempt once or twice already at minimum. Unlike the above topics, I haven’t come up with a hard and fast rule yet. I am still open to being swayed in one direction or another. Bi/Multiracial people confuse the issue through no fault of their own, simply by existing. Using the least complicated formula, if a person is 50% Black and 50% Other, then what are they? Black? Other? Mixed seems most accurate, but we are a visual society. And we’re also in a self-identification era. If it is evident to an observer that someone is African American, do we decide for them that they’re Black? If it isn’t obvious at a glance, do we decide for them that they are not Black. Or do they get to decide for themself no matter what they look like? Rachel Dolezal added to the confusion in epic fashion. Zero percent Black but she identified big time to the point of fooling people for years. Despite what Ancestry.com said about her, she managed to look the part of a Black woman, aided by reinforcing behavior. Then someone pulled out a photograph of her parents and the jig was up. Many White people can tan well enough to be deemed Black per the paper bag test whether they’re trying to trick others or not. Rachel Dolezal needed far less help to sufficiently pass for Black than Zoe Saldana required to not at all convincingly pass for Nina Simone. It’s pretty crazy when you think about it that Zoe has successfully passed for blue and green, but when she tried to simply be blacker than her natural shade, collective outrage was the result. Her team clearly needed revamping because at least one person should have told her that portraying Nina Simone was a terrible idea. Never mind that she is an excellent actress, that her job description is literally pretending to be other people. In the end, identifying as Hispanic is what got her an Oscar, so she’ll probably ride that out for a while. Rather absurdly, Hailee Steinfeld caught flack in certain corners for being someone who turns out to be about 1/8 Black playing a character in the movie Sinners who is about 1/8 Black. You can’t even pretend to be what you actually are without pissing someone off these days. Perhaps if she had a much blacker sounding last name than Steinfeld, everybody would have let it go. Bottom line is that it isn’t easy being Black when we’re not quite sure what that means. We know it when we see it, except for when we don’t. We see it when we think we know it is perhaps more accurate. DNA, self-identification, societal determination, paper bag test, all or none of the above. Your guess is as good as mine. In the meantime, I’ll continue to say it loud – I’m Black (whatever that is) and I’m proud.


* Racism is a 1-way street (aka Blacks can't be racist): Hogwash. Every street runs two ways minimum, even if on some of them cars are only permitted to drive in one direction. If you (no matter what race you happen to belong to) generalize and pre-judge an entire race of people (no matter which race is the one being judged) then congratulations, you have just participated in the art of racism. We are all capable of being angels and all capable of being a-holes towards our fellow (wo)man. The more power that you personally and your race in general wields, the more harm you are capable of inflicting with it.  But even if you are relatively powerless, if writing a scathing think piece read by six people is about as much damage as you can inflict, you still don't get to be excused from having a racist mindset.




* Respectability does not equal self hate (except for when it does): Respectability politics affects people regardless of race (though for some reason it is most spotlighted when occurring in the Black community) because it's basically another way of referring to the generation divide. Individuals who are more mature of age, more seasoned with experienced, more laden with responsibilities, will always have a different perspective about how to dress and speak and comport themselves than those who are just starting out in adult life. For an older black person to think that a younger one wearing pants with the waistband nearly down to his knees looks ridiculous is a reasonable conclusion in my opinion. But that may be because I have lived long enough to now qualify as an older black person when standing next to a twenty-two year old. Fortunately the sagging pants era is mostly over with by the time I'm adding this paragraph in August of 2020. The fashion statement has not gone away entirely, as I saw an example just the other day. But it's no longer a dominant look, having been overtaken by other fads. By the very definition, fads come and then they go. So it's probably not worth the energy expelled to get riled up over any one fad in particular. Back in the 1990's when Bill Cosby ruled the world of network television, he branded respectability politics with great effect. Whether he was being humorous on the topic or dead serious, he was a revered authority and therefore we listened when he mocked younger people for failing to display decorum. How are you supposed to get a job when you wear those clothes and that hairstyle and speak largely in Ebonics? In some cases he had a valid point. An equally valid one would be - How dare you lecture the younger generation over matters of etiquette while being a serial rapist?! There is nothing especially respectable about being in jail as a senior citizen, not because of how you wore your pants or communicated your thoughts, but because of deplorable actions. There are other preachers of respectability politics and not all of them have ended up in jail. If given with respect, the advice of elders is worth listening to and perhaps even heeding. If spit out with derision, it will be branded as respectability politics and tuned out. Time serves as equalizer. The ones being criticized today are the ones who will do the criticizing tomorrow. World keeps spinning.












R.I.P. Sandra Bland. May the full truth be unearthed and justice prevail.
And now for some book reviews:


Mary Poppins (Mary Poppins, #1)Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I knew from the movie Saving Mr. Banks that a personality overhaul was given to Mary Poppins when Disney adapted this book into a film. She's all sweetness and light in the film, quite the hard ass in the book. She's rather vain in the book as well. I suppose I'd be vain too if I could fit furniture into a suitcase and fly by umbrella. I learned from Wikipedia that the reason so much that happens in the movie is not in the book is because there are 8 Mary Poppins books and the movie is based on events taken from the first four, plus some stuff added by Disney. I can't say that I loved this classic book that spawned the much more charming movie. I'm giving 3 stars rather than 2 because without the books, starting with this one, there is no movie.

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How the García Girls Lost Their AccentsHow the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a beautifully written book. But it's one of those works of fiction that isn't really about anything in particular. Readers spend time with alternating Garcia girls in random order throughout a portion of their lives. There is no plot to speak of. The chapters are connected by the fact that one or more Garcia girl is featured in each of them, but you could read them in any order you wanted without impacting the reading experience. The chapters/scenes hold your attention in standalone fashion as well as loosely connecting with the others. I didn't grow attached to anyone in particular. I cared about what was happening when it was happening and then the book moved on to something else. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is a well written series of scattered moments in the lives of girls who become women who become the memory of a book you once read.

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The RuinsThe Ruins by Scott B. Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seriously creepy stuff. What do you do if you and a group of friends end up on a hill in Mexico that is crawling with vines from hell. They can think, plot, see, hear, deceive, mock, physically and mentally torture, invade your body, destroy your soul before eventually, inevitably stripping your bones clean? You hold out for as long as you can in hopes that the cavalry will arrive before it's too late. If one of you happens to be an Eagle Scout, perhaps you can figure out ways to last longer than most. But no matter. It was too late the moment you took one step upon that hill. This is a dreams haunting kind of book.

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The GoldfinchThe Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Extraordinary. The Goldfinch is a deeply satisfying blend of gorgeous literary writing with a thriller style plot and Charles Dickens-esque range of scope. Theo Decker is a character we watch from boyhood to manhood, in peril for much of that time, in possession of a cherished gift. It's a gift meant for all people who appreciate art and beauty, not just for him, but it ends up in his hands to secretly protect and preserve. After surviving an explosion that takes his mother's life he moves through his days recklessly. As a teen in his father's careless charge he immerses himself in drugs. As an adult who has somehow managed to secure a comfortable lifestyle with the seemingly non perilous job of selling antique furniture, he is continually drawn to danger. His mindset is practically suicidal, we readers care about him more than he seems to care for himself. He is also cared for by those in his inner circle: his best friend Boris, father figure Hobie, and Pippa, the girl whom he loves from first sight but has no idea what to do about it. Theo protects a masterpiece meant to be displayed on museum walls much as he guards memories of his mother who was taken too soon. Memories never have to be surrendered, but eventually we all find ourselves needing to let go.

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A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There are Young Adult classics that dazzle no matter when in life a reader comes across them. And then there are those that one needs to be young to fully appreciate, it seems. If discovered too late in life, those in the latter category will fail to impress. I'm putting A Wrinkle in Time in that latter group. A lofty reputation preceded but when I finally got around to reading it, I simply failed to see what all the fuss is about. Yet if my theory is accurate then my daughter, who it was read aloud to, would have enjoyed it considerably more than I did. She didn't. We were both underwhelmed, though we were in agreement that it got better as it went along and we became used to the space age setting. I am dazzled by the best of science fiction because of the level of imagination required to create a new world from scratch. I would not call A Wrinkle in Time science fiction at its best. I'll stick with writers such as Philip K. Dick for that. I feel kind of bad almost that I didn't enjoy this book more than I did because I know it's such a beloved classic. A great many readers will enthusiastically recommend it to you. Take them up on it. Perhaps you will agree with them more than you do with my review, and that's fine by me.

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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Racial Penalty Flag




Someone in my Twitter timeline who doesn't follow me back asked in reference to the latest news break out of the NFL 
"Why isn’t the NFL trying to ban all curse words and slurs? Why only ‘nigga’ or ‘nigger’?"


I'll assume it wasn't a rhetorical question and will answer him and anybody else who may be wondering the same thing here.


The #NFL has no problem with profanity so long as microphones fail to pick it up. They get that grown men hitting each other will often curse while doing so.


The #NFL is strictly addressing racism with this move. You recall being mad at Riley Cooper, right? If ugly remarks like his infamous ones are said in a game rather than a rodeo or wherever the heck he was, that's now a penalty. Simple enough.


Think of it this way. Murder is a crime. But lawmakers also saw fit to make an extra category of racial based murder called a hate crime.


Murder is murder.  Dead is dead. But there is a greater penalty to pay for a hate crime killing than a “standard, garden variety” killing, just as killing a cop is treated harsher than civilian murder.


Just as there's murder & then there's hate crime murder, you can say (the NFL certainly is) that there's profanity and then there's hate crime level profanity.  We all know the words that are meant to insult someone’s race.  The n-word gets the most attention these days, even has TV specials dedicated to it.  Frankly, I think I said all that needs to be said on the subject here 


But the n-word slur certainly doesn’t stand alone.  If you think it does, ask someone who is Hispanic or Jewish or Asian or Native American or pretty much anything.  We don’t even bother being discreet when it comes to Native Americans.  We use ethnic slurs against them as team names!!!  That’s why I wrote this 


The NFL is trying to bear down on "hate crime" variety profanity. Hence, the n-word is being treated harsher than the f-word, b-word, c-word, etc.  It isn’t a generic insult.  It is specifically based on race and many laws have had to be passed in this country to reinforce that racial discrimination/abuse is a no-no.


That's the answer to the question. But the extra wrinkle is that most n-word usage in NFL (per my guess) is not "White on Black" but “Black on Black”.  The majority of n-word use in #NFL isn't said by the Riley Coopers or our society. It's being said by one black guy to another.


Therefore you can say that the NFL isn't so much trying to curb racial hate as putting a pause on racial self hate.


You can reasonably see this as condescending IF you view the NFL as a white institution primarily policing their black employees in this matter.  After all, 70% of the players are black and 100% of the owners (or if not, then damn close to it) are white. So a rule change primarily targeting African Americans is targeting the majority of the league. I wonder what percentage of the other 30% is Samoan.  But I digress.


The #NFL can rightfully reply that they are a private organization. Nobody has to work for them. Be a garbage man and say the n-word all day long if you wish.  No slight intended to sanitation workers, by the way.  It’s simply the first profession that sprang to mind to use as an example.


The #NFL is stepping into some choppy waters here. Some have been angered, some nod in agreement, all should agree it's a bold statement.

I will repeat that I believe most use of the n-word on #NFL fields, even when used angrily, is said without offensive intent. Racism is society's problem, not necessarily the NFL's.  So why should the #NFL bother to play with this landmine?


Societal change often starts in sports. That's one of the coolest things about sports, why I've so often written about the far reaching impact of games we watch grown men play.


Branch Rickey once insisted that his Dodgers be better than baseball so Major League Baseball would be better than society so society would become better.  Even if his true motivation was considerably more selfish ("bringing in some black guys will get us to the World Series and make me more money"), the end result still turned out to be a better world.


Blacks parrot white racism against selves with n-word usage. No getting around this no matter what spin you put on it.  It does not matter if a foul mouthed parrot does not mean anything mean spirited by the words it learned from the pirate who owns him. It’s still cussing.


Would significantly reducing black on black simulated verbal abuse improve society? The debate rages on. Positions remain entrenched.


Even if non bigoted n-word usage isn't harmful, it also isn't beneficial to anybody other than guy in need of a word rhyming with trigger.


Or malt liquor. Not the most compelling reasons so perhaps it’s worth at least considering letting the n-word go quietly into the night.


The other day my 7 year old daughter told me her white classmate said there is a bad word in a Jay Z song that starts with N. His dad told him it's bad.


I'm guessing it came up because the kid was rapping along with the song so his dad had to say "hold up there, sonny, not cool to say that".


My daughter wanted to know if I knew what the word was, and if so, could I tell her. She's real interested these days in curse words.


Topic of bigotry hasn't even entered picture on anyone's end at this point. My daughter just wants to learn a new cuss word for her collection.  I'm sloppy with Spotify and YouTube. Every so often I'll let a song with curses play and when she catches one my daughter acts like it’s a prize.


I tell her that I do know what n-word is in the song, that I won't be telling her what it is, and that her friend's dad is right.


I also tell her that she will eventually find out what the word is, at which point we'll have the discussion on why I feel it's a bad word to say.


She's no doubt heard the n-word several times, pretty much exclusively by blacks, but she doesn't know to have an opinion on it yet.



Even if you're cool with n-word usage (by African Americans) perhaps you at least agree that it shouldn't come from the mouths of babes. But what we say, they will surely repeat.  Kids are able to repeat many more words than a parrot can.  Eventually they learn all of the meanings, come to understand all of the outward hate intended by them, and have to decide for themselves if some of it is being directed inward.


“It was just a word. It took nothing from him. It made him feel only as low as he allowed himself to feel. His own brother used it in conversation habitually. But not in the same way - filled with malice, overflowing with insult. He couldn't tear his eyes away, shook with lust for retribution. Six little letters making one huge statement. NIGGER.” - From PATCHES OF GREY

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Monday, July 29, 2013

#DonLemonLogic




The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is because of the disintegration of the African-American family.  – Bill O’Reilly

STFU Bill – The vast majority of black people in America


Recently CNN’s Don Lemon proposed some solutions to deal with alleged persistent problems in the African American community (see video above).  He suggested 5 things that he feels would be effective: hiking up pants, finishing school, restraint from N-word usage, taking better care of own communities, and not having so many babies out of wedlock.  Lemon caught a considerable amount of flack (i.e. people lost their minds) for expressing these opinions.  I should add that he prefaced his suggestions by agreeing with criticism of African Americans that came from the obnoxious mouth of Bill O’Reilly.  Not only did he agree with it, but he said Bill didn’t go far enough.  Not that Bill is the first white person or Don Lemon the first black person to propose racial self criticism rather than only directing critique outward towards “the oppressor”.  I should also add that the genesis of this topic was the killing of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal after belated arrest of George Zimmerman.  At this particular moment in history as we cry #JusticeForTrayvon and aim to counter the unfair verdict with decisive action, self criticism is the last thing many black people want to hear.  When connecting such (well meaning?) (condescending?) advice to the killing of Trayvon Martin, it sounds like one is agreeing with the prosecutor’s POV (which the jury went along with) that Trayvon brought about his own death, rather than seeing the fault as lying primarily/exclusively with his killer.  Don Lemon wasn’t actually talking about Zimmerman’s acquittal when giving his self-help proposals.  I also suspect Bill O’Reilly (whom I dislike and won’t be coy about it) was not talking specifically about the disintegration of Trayvon Martin’s family as the cause of his death. Nevertheless, Bill’s judgment and Don’s suggestions and mass furor over Zimmerman’s acquittal have become intertwined.  This led to Don Lemon (no point in yelling at O’Reilly, he’d just revel in it) getting an earful of pissed off responses.  “How dare you give the African American community advice?  To hell with you for insinuating that we need help, that we have problems in need of fixing.  If you must criticize, can’t you at least be original rather than repeating Bill Cosby’s material?  And shame on you for suggesting that Bill O’Reilly has ever been right about anything."

My own response to Mr. Lemon is considerably less heated, which isn’t to say that I’m in full agreement with him.  I certainly don’t think it was smart of him to co-sign as divisive a figure as O’Reilly or any of his conservative ilk that pollute the airwaves (primarily on Fox).  And Don should have known his timing was very poor.  Perhaps he knew and doesn’t care.  He seems like an intelligent man so he probably anticipated backlash.  To get discussion started it is often necessary to ruffle feathers and Don Lemon certainly accomplished that.  Pointing out white privilege will get you nods and high fives of agreement every time.  Pointing out black responsibility for projecting a negative image (have you listened to the lyrics of those rap songs; have you seen those gold teeth; why is gang culture exalted rather than condemned?) usually results in jeers and sarcastic hashtags on Twitter.  Why should we follow Lemon's non-militant advice?  After all, if his suggestions were followed to the letter there would still be racism against black people across America.  There’s just no getting around that.  If every black person walked around in tuxedos and evening gowns, showing off their PhD credentials, never saying a single word beginning with the letter N, carrying brooms at all times to keep their neighborhoods litter free, and pulled off having every child born into a nuclear family – there would still be a bunch of bigots who hate and/or disrespect black people.  Disdain of white privilege would remain the go to response.  In other words, if Don Lemon was Emperor of the Universe and could make his suggestions reality with a wave of his magic wand, post racial America would be about the same distance away as it is now.  Black people don’t need to prove to whites that they’re worthy to be treated as equals in every regard.  This just needs to happen beginning yesterday.

On the other hand, if you were one of the squeaky wheels demanding oil after Don Lemon’s proclamations, what exactly did he suggest that you find problematic?  This is what I think:

1) Pants sagging below one’s ass is an idiotic look, there’s just no getting around it.  If homeless people look at you and shake their heads at your fashion style, you’ve made a wrong turn.  Yet a fairly significant number of black people for reasons that escape me are walking around like this, and it’s been going on for quite a few years now.  I don’t care if the look was inspired by prison culture or an episode of Gilligan’s Island or whatever.  I just know that it isn’t worth defending and we might want to move on to something ever so slightly less ludicrous, such as the bolo tie.  Purchasing belts/suspenders won’t create wealth (unless it gets you the job you applied for) or eradicate racism, but it will restore a measure of dignity to those who elected to abandon it.

2) Take school seriously, not that there aren't other alternatives to success but they have a lower percentage.  Pursue higher education for it has been proven to lead to higher income which leads to overall better quality of life.  There is nothing wrong with supporting this idea or with finding an anti-education/anti-grammar/anti-upward mobility mindset to be self destructive.

3) Changing “er” at the end of an insult to “a” does not make it poetry.  It just keeps a hateful word alive and promotes hypocrisy.  “I can say it but you can’t because I say so” is a weak argument that should not need to be made over and over and over again.  It's like Italians claiming they're the only ones who have permission to say "spaghetti".  Hell no.


4) Cleanliness is next to Godliness and makes a much better impression than filth.  This was probably Lemon’s weakest point.  Wealthy neighborhoods are in better condition than poor ones because of money.   The haves have, the have-nots don’t so suffer as result.  But it goes without saying that people should take care of their communities as much as they are able.

5) There are many heads of single parent households doing a bang up job.  But would we be better off if fewer teen girls were getting pregnant and if the guys responsible were holding up their end when pregnancies happen?  Of course.  A child born without a proper support network in place will be less likely to excel in school, so addressing Lemon's fifth suggestion should take care of suggestion #2.  Would there also be less people littering while walking around with sagging pants and calling themselves niggas?  Probably.


Don Lemon did not say anything new.  There are some who agree that following up on his suggestions would improve things, others who simply find them insulting.  If you’re one of those who does not believe the advice will do any good, tell me, what harm would it do?  The truth is, I’ve heard far worse recommendations and suspect you have too.

But I don’t believe black people should be singled out by Lemon, O’Reilly or anyone else for their perceived faults.   So to even things out here are 5 unrequested suggestions to all white people.  I’ll provide the same disclaimer that Lemon did.  “If this doesn’t apply to you, I’m not talking to you.”

1) Enough with the white flight.  If the demographics of your neighborhood are changing, faces getting browner, embrace the diversity rather than fleeing from it.  We can all learn from one another, enjoy each other’s company, and yes, we can all get along.

2) No more token friends of color to bring up when you’re accused of racism in order to prove you aren’t racist.  They need to be your actual friends that you spend non-required (workplace doesn’t count) time with, have over to your house repeatedly for social interaction, vacation with, consider as godparents for your kids, stuff like that.  If you had authentic friendships with black people you probably wouldn’t have made the comment that somebody found offensive.

3) Hypocritical or not, don’t pretend you don’t realize that your use of the N-word will be deemed an insult.  This is true even if you said it to a guy who just referred to you, himself and his grandmother as N-words.  Yes, I realize how illogical this seems but just roll with me anyway and delete the word from your vocabulary no matter how anybody chooses to spell it.

4) Stop pretending that welfare, food stamps, public assistance of any kind is taking money away from all white people to give to all black people.  There are black ghettoes and there are white ghettoes.  Okay, maybe the white ones call themselves trailer parks rather than ghettoes.  You still get my point that poverty doesn’t have a color, it sucks all around, and everyone mired in it will have a tougher time acquiring bootstraps to pull up than those who never had to wonder where their next meal was coming from.

5) If you insist on being a conservative republican, figure out how to do so employing language that does not insult black people.  This should not be all that difficult as there’s nothing especially bigoted about being Pro Life, or a member of the NRA, or in favor of smaller, less intrusive government.  If you professed those things and managed to piss a black person off in the process, double check how you chose to express it because you may have said a bit more than that.  For example, if based on your preference for less governmental interference in day to day affairs you concluded that President Obama was born in Kenya and has a master plan to convert America 100% to socialism, you went too far.

BONUS SUGGESTION: If someone reports their spouse or kids has been killed and claims "some black guy did it", don't buy into the story at face value and go rounding up random black men. If someone claims he shot a black man for looking/acting suspicious, don't just accept the explanation as gospel, shake the confessed killer's hand and wish him a good day. Don't get played by buying into BS stereotypes. Plenty of times the white person did it and the "ominous" black man was minding his own business or not even present at the scene of the crime. Don't believe the hype.


DOUBLE BONUS: "Karen/Caren culture" has got to go. Stop assuming that black people shouldn't be in the same place as you. Stop trying to get black people pestered/arrested for the crime of "being there". It's bad enough attempting to get somebody harassed by law enforcement that should be busy dealing with actual crimes due to your unreasonable discomfort with the presence of melanin. But at this point after so many victims of police brutality have been hashtagged and Colin Kaepernick went to so much trouble to shed light on the issue, you know encounters between white cops and black citizens often turn violent/fatal with little cause. Do you really want to be responsible for someone's death because you're quick to call the cops on someone same as you're inclined to ask to see the manager when dissatisfied with service? --- On the other hand, I do think it's kinda messed up for a random name to be stigmatized. Just like the term "Uncle Tom" is unfair to anyone named Tom who has nephews/nieces, making the name Karen/Caren synonymous with a-hole behavior doesn't seem right to me.  Be careful what words you decide to change into a slur. It's far easier to go there than it is to go back.





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Tuesday, January 4, 2011

A kinder, gentler Huck Finn - SMH




Today I learned about the upcoming publication of a new edition of 'Huckleberry Finn' that is to Drop 'N' Word. "Slave" will be used in its place throughout. Beyond moronic. What purpose is served besides pissing off Twain's ghost?


I am all for the choice of black people to cease & desist use of N-word just as I don’t want to hear it from the mouths of Caucasians. But whitewashing history is as absurd as whitewashing the present.


Mark Twain wrote nigger (yeah, I said it) in his book a bunch of times for the same reason I did in mine. It's called REALISM. He wasn't writing Fantasy. What do you think slave owners called African Americans in those times? How do you think black people were treated? As if they weren't people at all, that's how. If we sugar coat our horrific past now we will convince future generations that it wasn't so bad. When you fail to properly highlight and condemn atrocities, you welcome the opportunity for repetition of history. I don't want my great great grandchildren to believe the Holocaust was a Summer picnic and slavery was a leisurely stroll through the park.


Removing the N-word from Huck Finn should get it removed it from many banned book lists, which is the strongest argument for editing. My alternate suggestion - Complain like hell & if necessary change schools if your kid attends one that refuses to respect Twain's masterpiece. I'd rather a book be banned and retain its power (curious enough minds will read it whether assigned in school or not) than rewritten to make it impotent.

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As a public service perhaps hip hop artists will consider increasing N-word usage from 20 to 30 times per rap song to keep it from going extinct.

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Argument for removing N-word from Huck Finn is to make text less hurtful. It's SUPPOSED TO BE hurtful. You can't heal unless you first hurt. This nation needed the smack across the face that Huckleberry Finn provided. And you know what - It still does.



A young white man reading Huck Finn as written is able to see horror & unfairness of racism, it can help make him a better man. Why dilute that?



Huckleberry Finn is one of the works that influenced me to want to write about race in my fiction. Had I read a bastardized version I’m not sure if it has quite the same effect. I suspect not though.



I include Huckleberry Finn with Native Son, Invisible Man, Soul on Ice, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as examples of the most powerful examinations and indictments of racism in literature. Despite my pseudo-defense of her, I'm not quite putting the wit and wisdom of Dr. Laura Schlessinger in that pantheon.


Political Correctness has got to be the greatest oxymoron of all time.


Literary censorship has its place. I was against Amazon carrying a how-to-be-a-better-Pedophile book & against shelving racist Tintin book in kid section. But The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does not need to be censored. It needs to be celebrated for brilliance of narrative and potency of social commentary.

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Then again, if Huck Finn remains on banned lists young people may resort to reading Snooki's book instead, so perhaps some language clean up isn't such a bad idea after all.

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"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Author's Notice.


"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth." - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Opening lines of the book



"What's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?" - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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"All right, then, I'll go to hell." - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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